SOURCE: “Ruth, A Portrait.” Kirkus Reviews 65, no. 13 (1 July 1997): 999.

In the following review, the critic offers a mixed assessment of Ruth, A Portrait.

A syrupy but engaging biography of the famous preacher's irrepressible wife.

[Ruth, A Portrait] is bestselling novelist Cornwell's (Unnatural Exposure, p. 759, etc.) second attempt at a biography of her mentor, 77-year-old Ruth Bell Graham, wife of evangelist Billy. The first try, published in 1982, caused the very private Ruth to distance herself from Cornwell for eight years. It's hard to imagine what Ruth could find objectionable about this version: She comes across as a near saint, enduring a dangerous mission childhood in China, terrible migraine headaches as an adult (of which she “never complained”), and marriage to a mostly absent husband. Graham himself doesn't come off so well in this telling, seeming at times imperious or callous, even leaving a feverish Ruth alone for days, right after...